Fascinating Things : Issue 22

Those lovely people at The Active Listener are at it again with their 35th compilation of wonderful and psyche oriented musical sounds. There’s the usual eclectic mix including this time around music from recent favourites here Zx+ , Kingdom of the Holy Sun and The Seventh Ring of Saturn. Highly recommended as a place to dip your ear into some of the better things happening at the moment,

Llama Riot say they are proud to announce that their debut single “Live. Die. No Repeat.” is officially out now via all major download stores (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play etc) the world over. To celebrate this release they have unleashed a new video of which you can check out below. Touch of the Bunnymen I thought, nice,

Corrections House release their brand new full-length, “Know How To Carry A Whip”, this October via Neurot Recordings. The promo says the new one is darker, denser, and more despairing than the predecessor, 2013’s Last City Zero – featured on Sonic Attack 29 and my “Best Of Review of 2013“. The nine-track, forty-five-minute audio apocalypse was captured by the band’s own Sanford Parker (Minsk) and recently institutionalized minister of propaganda, Seward Fairbury, in Vietnam. The record boasts a guest appearance by Negative Soldier and finds Corrections House – which features the lineup of Parker, Fairbury, Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Bruce Lamont (Yakuza) and Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod) — at their ” most punishing, painting electronic mosaics of deviance and decadence with brushes made from bristles of the damned”.

The Melvins are back in Europe this September and October, with a series of live dates commencing Sept 13th in the UK in Bristol. The band will be performing as a four-piece, joining forces again with Jared Warren and Coady Willis of Big Business. Having released three full-length LP’s together, Warren and Willis also performed on the band’s “The Bulls & The Bees” EP, which was recently released as a split alongside the 2001 album “Electroretard”. This 13 song album features both releases on one CD, available for the first time as a package. The quartet also collaborated with a series of guest stars on their 2013 covers album “Everybody Loves Sausages”. The Melvins also released “Hold It” In last October, the 12-song album pairs Osborne and Crover with Butthole Surfers’ JD Pinkus and Paul Leary.

UK dates are:

Sept 13, 2015 – Bristol – Exchange

Sept 14, 2015 – Brighton, – Concorde 2

Oct 08, 2015 – Reading – Sub 89

Oct 09, 2015 – Manchester – Gorilla

Oct 10, 2015 – London – Electric Ballroom

I will be pulling together a dedicated Melvins retrospective podcast sometime in the near future to coincide with the tour.

Photo credit: Kevin Willis

With the impending release of the second album from BIG|BRAVE, titled Au De La, rapidly approaching through Southern Lord Recordings, the LP-opener “On The By And By And Thereon” has premiered through The Line Of Best Fit. With five expansive movements which transmit BIG|BRAVE‘s creative sounds with exceptional production values, Au De La was recorded at Hotel2Tango with Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra) and mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market (Front Line Assembly, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, C H R I S T). Presenting forty-five minutes of luminous, exploratory, post/avant rock, the album sees vocalist/guitarist Robin Wattie, guitarist Mathieu Bernard Ball and drummer Louis-Alexandre Beauregard delivering a layered, engaging, memorable, visceral voyage. “On The By And By And Thereon,” the lead track to this auditory journey, which is one of several on the album to feature shimmering nets of violin by Jessica Moss (Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra), can be enjoyed for the first time here. Previous material can be sourced via Bandcamp here. Here’s a trailer for the album. Once I get a review copy I shall fill you in on more detail about this release.

ANDREW R. BURNS & THE TROPICANAS debut ep (released May 2015 on Flowers In The Dustbin) was featured on Aural Delights 123. The label has announced the release of follow up ep ‘Delaydeez’. The band describe their music as “tropical dreamslop… lazy unpolished, reverb laden tunes.” The ep is out Sunday 18th October, available from itunes and all major digital stores via Flowers In The Dustbin. It is also available to pre-order now from their Bandcamp store with an instant download of Pop snuff-it.